Ian Colford was born, raised and educated in Halifax. His reviews and stories have appeared in many print and online publications. He is the author of two collections of short fiction and three novels and is the recipient of the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Evidence. The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard was the 2022 Guernica Prize-winning title!
In the week following our first time in bed together Sophie and I met privately about half a dozen times. Each reunion was a great relief to me because the moment we parted I began to fret over what had occurred, shouldering the blame, formulating exit strategies from what I knew to be a scandalous, alarming predicament. Once we were together, my guilt vanished and I lost myself in the innocent yearning of her eyes, in the allure of her young body and the tranquil beauty of her soul. We spent most of that Saturday afternoon in each other’s arms, intermittently dozing, and consciously (in my own case) not speaking of what had just happened. Lying beside me, she appeared happy, composed and as regally confident as I had ever seen her. We shared a cigarette, then another. At one point my telephone rang and with blissful nonchalance I ignored it. Sophie burst out laughing. And then we were both laughing, perhaps at each other, perhaps at the thought of the outside world trying in this puny fashion to distract us from our euphoria. When we talked, our conversation gravitated toward the irreverent and the inconsequential, as if we couldn’t possibly have anything to worry about. For almost five hours that afternoon, lying in bed together seemed the most natural thing in the world and nothing less than what we deserved. And when toward seven in the evening she finally left to go home and dine with her parents, we stood at the door and indulged in a long kiss. Then she declined my offer to accompany her at least part of the way and I watched her walk down the street and around the corner, waving to me until she disappeared. It wasn’t until after she was gone that I realized we’d made no arrangement to meet again.
As it happened she was at my door very early the next morning. I took a moment to answer the knock, for I imagined in that instant Frederick waiting to wallop me senseless for what I had done to his daughter. I knew this was unlikely—for one thing Sophie would have told him nothing, and for another, he was perhaps the gentlest person on earth—but my mind was quick to envision catastrophe. I was still in a state of anxious trepidation I can only compare to how a professional spy must feel when, having committed an act of treachery in which he’d betrayed his country for selfish reasons, he suddenly finds himself burdened with a conscience.
When I saw it was Sophie, my first thought was that she had come to rebuke me for having taken shameful advantage of her youthful naiveté and to give me fair warning so I could pack my bags and leave town before she told her parents about us and took her story to the papers. But even before I saw the smile on her face I knew that I was tormenting myself needlessly. I opened the door and instantly we joined in a fierce embrace. Once again, we went to bed; once again, neither of us found any reason to leave the flat or venture any further than the bathroom for many hours. I considered going to church to try to cleanse my soul or at least feign contrition for my sins but I couldn’t leave Sophie alone in order to partake in a ritual that to a large extent symbolized the barren existence I had endured before this weekend. I had never before been tempted to view my life as menial or drab. But it was dawning on me that I had also never allowed myself to experience passion or to hunger after something with an unquenchable appetite, never allowed myself to lose control even for an instant. In only a day I had attained an understanding of myself that would have eluded me for years had not Sophie slipped past my emotional bulwarks. I had been a sad case: a timid man who out of fear of the unruly had denied himself sustenance from another’s love.
There were practical considerations, to be sure, and I saw these massing on the horizon as one glimpses approaching storm clouds. The need for secrecy was uppermost in my mind. Looking at it from the perspective of Frederick, Pauline, or their social circle, I could find no mitigating factor that might excuse what I was doing, no possible interpretation of events that would situate my behaviour in a favourable light. I was not so blinded by lust that I failed to anticipate how perverted my actions would appear to the wrong people. And I wanted to avoid causing anyone pain. To this end, when I was alone I plotted vague measures that would safeguard our secret, pictured us behaving with discretion at every step, never holding hands in public, meeting only in my flat or perhaps at a country inn miles out of town. The thought of engaging in deception under these circumstances did not trouble me, for I convinced myself that it was undertaken solely for the benefit of others, that I was being big-hearted and considerate.
On the other hand, it wearied me to think of maintaining this deception for an indefinite period. When I looked at myself, which I did as seldom as possible these days, I found I neither trusted nor fully comprehended my new persona, one so estranged from the upright and principled individual I used to be. I realized that understanding would come with time, but until then I had to continue playing my former self when in polite company.
I returned to work early Monday morning, hopelessly in arrears and soon in a panic over how I was to make up the ground I’d lost in the previous week. I sorted through the papers heaped on my desk and attempted to set a few priorities. There were reports to write and meetings to attend. I discovered several outstanding accounts still to be settled and an unpleasant personnel problem I’d been avoiding for weeks leapt to the forefront. And yet, despite the urgency of work, I kept drifting off, head in the clouds, always trying to drag myself back to the matter at hand. I was happy in a way that had eluded me for years and I wanted to declare this in a loud voice—to the people in the office, strangers on the street, to all my friends, Pauline and Frederick included. And yet I could not speak of it.
How long could I live this way, and how long could I expect Sophie to live this way? How long before the first cracks appeared?
- Publisher : Guernica Editions (Nov. 1 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 300 pages
- ISBN-10 : 177183837X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1771838375
